


A Distant Memory of Song

by Gammarad



Category: Die Loreley - Heinrich Heine
Genre: Academia, Gen, Hairbrushing, Sirens, Slice of Life, The Song of the Lorelei, late treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:07:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24206419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gammarad/pseuds/Gammarad
Summary: An old story comes unbidden to the mind of a young scholar who studies old stories. She studies her reflection.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 9
Collections: Once Upon a Fic 2020





	A Distant Memory of Song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ruis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruis/gifts).



> For your prompt: 
> 
> _Or: I would also really LOVE something about the narrator who, at the beginning, remembers the whole Loreley myth as "a tale of the bygone ages". Where is the narrator, when is the narrator, why do they think of this particular tale?_

The scholar looked into the mirror and brushed her hair. The bangs were as long as the rest, crackling with static as the bristles moved through the strands, veiling her view of her face with sunset twinkling gold reflections off and through each individual blonde hair.

The routine soothed her after a difficult day of classes, assigned reading, note-taking, and laborious translation from antique documents in hands varying from fine calligraphy to near chicken-scratch unreadability. Her thesis on folk beliefs of sailors through history was reaching a middle. It felt like she had been working on it forever, and still so much left to do before she was done.

If only she had time to take a break on a weekend night. She could go out, dance, drink, maybe meet someone who would take her mind off all this for an hour or a night. Though that often led to its own problems, she had noticed after a time or two. She'd been careless enough to give her cell phone number and there had been awkward texting more than once. 

No, it was better to simply keep working, she decided, make sure she got enough sleep and healthy food, keep up with her cardio and pilates, and hope that would be enough. Until she finished her thesis, at least. 

For some reason that she didn't understand, the old story she'd been translating came into her mind. A traditional tale probably inspired by the ancient Greek sirens, of a singer who lured ships to wreck against the rock whose peak she sang from, but this one was in Old Frisian and she wasn't sure how it had made the transition.

Maybe it was brushing her hair that had brought the thought up. The siren in the tale had long golden hair, and combed it as she sang, to the point where the storyteller seemed unsure if it was her song or her hair that had the greater allure. 

She put the thought aside as she finished her nightly routine and prepared for sleep. 

But in her dreams, the Loreley sat high on her mountain, not noticing the sailors far below, still luring them to wreck against her cliffs. She sang in ancient Greek, in Old Frisian, in Gascon and in some other, dream language that she did not recognize but was sure in the dream that she knew, and the scholar listened and imagined herself a sailor bemused by the voice she heard.

Because the Loreley never notices the sailors, she knows nothing of their doom. She may be kind-hearted; if she knew the tale of another like her, she might have boundless theoretical sympathy for such a creature's victims. But by definition, she cannot know she has her own.


End file.
